The Lufthansa Group Ramps up Flight Schedule for Summer 2021
According to Aviationpros.com, Lufthansa Group is poised for a transformational summer 2021 season and ready to serve the ever-increasing, pent-up demand for travel. The company is ramping up flights, re-introducing North American routes and launching a new destination in the United States during the upcoming summer 2021 flight schedule, which begins on March 28
North America is one of the most important markets for the Lufthansa Group and therefore certain key transatlantic routes are being reinstated in the summer 2021 schedule. Swiss will resume service on the Miami – Zurich route beginning March 28, with up to five weekly frequencies. Up to seven weekly services will also be offered between Boston – Zurich from May 1 onwards, and up to five weekly services will be offered from Los Angeles – Zurich from May 2. In May, Austrian Airlines will once again be flying three times a week to New York’s JFK and Montreal, both to and from Vienna.
More positive updates include a new route being introduced to the United States. In June, Eurowings Discover, the Lufthansa Group’s new leisure travel-focused airline, will launch a direct route from Anchorage, Alaska to Frankfurt, Germany. The Anchorage flight will be operated three times a week.
This summer, in Europe, at Lufthansa Group’s hubs (Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna, Zurich), leisure destinations will be the focus, with the Group offering the most extensive range of vacation destinations in years, thus further demonstrating the company’s knowledge of the leisure travel market. Over the course of the summer, Lufthansa plans to add around 20 new vacation destinations to its flight program from Frankfurt and 13 new holiday destinations from Munich. Special focus: the Caribbean, the Canary Islands and Greece. For further details, please click here and continue reading on aviationpros.com
going even further: Swiss expands flights from summer
Aviationpros posted another great news regarding one of the most important carrier in the Group: Swiss Airlines. Swiss Chief Commercial Officer Tamur Goudarzi Pour said the following: “We won’t be substantially expanding it again until the summer travel season. But when we do so, we’ll be putting a clear focus on leisure travellers and on customers visiting friends and relatives, as the business travel segment will take longer to return.” Swiss plans to restore its capacities to around 65 percent of their 2019 levels in the course of the third-quarter period. The company will serve 85 destinations from Zurich and 43 from Geneva in its 2021 summer schedules.
Swiss will be offering two new European destinations from Zurich in its summer schedules. The airline of Switzerland will operate two weekly services from June 25 onwards to Tallinn, Estonia’s capital and business and cultural center, which stands on the Baltic Sea. And from July 2 onwards Swiss will offer two weekly frequencies from Zurich to Billund in Denmark, which is best known as the home of Lego and its Legoland theme park.
In addition to the two new Zurich destinations, Swiss will restore services on various European and intercontinental routes on which they are currently suspended. On the long-haul front, service will resume on the Zurich-Miami (Florida) route from March 28 with up to five weekly frequencies. Up to seven weekly services will also be offered between Zurich and Boston on the US East Coast from May 1 onwards, and up to five weekly services will be offered to Los Angeles on the US West Coast from 2 May onwards. Swiss further plans to operate up to four weekly flights to Egypt’s capital Cairo from July 1 onwards.
On its Zurich short-haul network, Swiss will resume services….for further details, please click here and continue reading on aviationpros.com
India Extends International Flight Ban Another Month
According to Pranjal Pande from Simple Flying, India has extended its scheduled international flight ban once again. The order means that all scheduled passenger flights are suspended until the end of March, while cargo flights may continue to operate. However, international travel has resumed due to travel bubbles and hundreds of repatriation flights.
In what has become routine now, the Indian government has ordered that regular international flights remain suspended for another month. March will mark one full year since India ordered its first international flight ban. The original one-week ban has now been extended to one year (and likely beyond).
The Indian government has repeatedly signaled that it has no plans to reopen regular flights until travel restrictions remain in place. This will likely take months, if not another year, as vaccines slowly rollout and infection levels must fall for borders to reopen. However, India no longer seems concerned about restoring regular flights soon, focusing on travel bubbles instead.
Instead of reopening all flights, India has been signing travel agreements to restart international flights. 27 countries have agreed to the travel bubbles, allowing flights to and from these destinations to resume. This includes countries like the US, UK, Germany, UAE, Oman, Maldives, Seychelles, Russia, Rwanda, Qatar, and several more. For further details, please click here and continue reading on Simple Flying.
Colombia extends closure of river, land borders until June 1 – Air travel still open
According to Reuters, Colombia will keep its land and river borders closed for three months, until June 1, as it tries to curb the spread of coronavirus, its migration agency said on Saturday.
“We cannot lower our guard,” Juan Francisco Espinosa, director general of the migration agency, said in a statement. “Covid doesn’t distinguish between nationalities and we must follow the recommendations of the health authorities, in order to overcome this pandemic together.”
The borders were expected to reopen on March 1. While they remain closed, exceptions to the measure include freight transport, health emergencies, and other unforeseen emergencies, the agency said.
Air travel will not be affected by the rules.
Earlier this week the government said it would extend its health state of emergency until at least May 31. For further details, please continue reading here on Reuters.
Vermont will allow fully vaccinated travelers to skip quarantine
According to Andrea Smith from Lonely Travel, Travelers who are planning to come to Vermont are permitted to bypass quarantine as long as at least 14 days have passed since they were fully vaccinated against Covid.
Those arriving by plane, train or bus who are not vaccinated must quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in the New England state. If they have not had any symptoms of COVID-19, travelers have the option to obtain a PCR test on or after the seventh day of quarantine. They can end their quarantine with a negative test result, but must continue to monitor themselves for symptoms for the full 14 days.
There is an option to quarantine in your own home state before traveling to Vermont. Visitors arriving by car or private plane have the option to quarantine at home and then drive directly there, or else they must quarantine in Vermont after they arrive. They can complete a 14-day quarantine or a 7-day quarantine followed by a negative PCR test in their home state and enter Vermont without further travel-related quarantine restrictions.
Travelers who stop en route to Vermont are asked to wear a face mask, stay at least six feet away from people they don’t live with, avoid crowded indoor spaces and wash their hands often. Those who have completed quarantine are not permitted to gather with another household in Vermont.
For further details, please continue reading on Lonely Planet.
New Philippines COVID-19 rules: PCR test scrapped for domestic travel
According to the gulfnews.com, on February 27 (Saturday) the Presidential Palace announced a rule mandating RT-PCR test for local travel has been scrapped in the Philippines following a recent government decision. The move came as a result of efforts to unify travel protocols in all local government units (LGUs), according to a senior official.
More importantly, it also scrapped the requirement to secure a travel authority document from the police and a clearance from local health authorities. In the past, these two documents, in addition to a negative PCR test result, was required for people move from one province or city to another within the Philippines. The latest government decision is seen as a way to rekindle domestic tourism.
The Uniform Travel Protocols (UTP) for land, air and sea was drafted and recommended by the Department of the Interior and Local Government alongside the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP), the League of Provinces of the Philippines, League of Municipalities of the Philippines and the League of Cities of the Philippines.
For the rest of the news, please click here and continue reading on gulfnews.com
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